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- [00:00]
Afua Hirsch
Wondery subscribers can binge seasons of legacy early and ad free. Join Wondery in the Wonderry app or on Apple Podcasts.
- [00:09]
Ryan Reynolds
Wondery.
- [00:15]
Afua Hirsch
Hello and welcome to this brand new series of legacy.
- [00:19]
Peter Frankopan
We're in London, 1945. The war has been won, fascism has been beaten. And there's one man standing tall at the heart of all of this triumph. Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill.
- [00:37]
Afua Hirsch
8Th of May, 1945. Buckingham Palace, London. Stepping onto the palace balcony, Churchill marvels at the floods of people pouring into them all. A sea of Union Jacks ripple above their delirious faces. Since the announcement of Germany's surrender earlier in the afternoon, London has felt electrified. The joy and relief of every man, woman and child in the capital is palpable. As he approaches the microphone, a roar rises up to where he stands on the balcony. To one side of him, he takes in the serene countenance of the King. Next to him, the Queen and Princess Margaret and Elizabeth look awestruck by the scene unfolding before them. Looking up, Churchill spots a lone fighter plane making its way back to Hendri. He feels a sudden pang of grief. Six years of presiding over missions, sending countless young pilots to their death. It's been an effort to keep the guilt and the sorrow in check. Now, facing the crowd, he's struck by their heroism. Ordinary people who, year on year, have endured the bombing raids, bereavements and sacrifices. As he clears his throat, the crowd falls silent.
- [02:03]
Ryan Reynolds
This is your victory. Victory of the cause, of freedom in every land. In all our long history, we have never seen a greater day than this. Everyone, man or woman, has done their best.
- [02:32]
Afua Hirsch
As the crowd roars its approval, Churchill ushers the others forward to receive the applause. But he feels the enormous hand of Labour Minister Ernest Bevan rest on his shoulder. Here's his usually booming west country voice. Say, no, Winston, this is your day. Addressing the crowd, Bevan raises his arms and starts to sing. For he's a jolly good fellow. For he's a jolly good fellow. Churchill feels the ground beneath him shift and tears spring from his eyes. The dam inside him gives way to a deluge of emotion that can finally be unleashed.
- [03:18]
Ryan Reynolds
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- [04:17]
Unknown
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- [05:26]
Peter Frankopan
From Wundery and Goalhanger. I'm Peter Frankenpan.
- [05:29]
Afua Hirsch
I'm AFWA Hirsch and this is Legacy.
- [05:33]
Peter Frankopan
The show that tells the lives of the most extraordinary men and women ever to have lived and asks if they have the reputation that they deserve.
- [05:48]
Afua Hirsch
This is Churchill, Episode one Born to Rule.
- [06:02]
Peter Frankopan
How are we going to deal with complexity, afwa? Because it's not surely Churchill good or Churchill bad.
- [06:07]
Afua Hirsch
What I think we should do, and this is what I'm really excited to do with you, Peter, is get into all areas of his life, not just the Battle of Britain, D day, fighting on the beaches, the V signs, the cigars, the bulldog. All of the things that run the risk of being slightly caricatured in the way we remember him. We are going to look at how much more there really is to Winston Churchill, and for me, an honest conversation about his legacy requires us to look at him in the round, at all chapters of his life, all the significant decisions and ideologies that he embraced that's what we aim to do with this series. Right.
- [06:44]
Peter Frankopan
Well, I'm gonna go early on this one, afwa, and I'm gonna say I recognize all of the criticisms and shortcomings, but on balance, he's got to come out on the side of the saints and the angels rather than the alternatives. So we're gonna see whether I can get that one past you.
- [06:59]
Afua Hirsch
I'm open to the discussion. Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill is born into an aristocratic family on 30 November 1874. It is the peak era of British imperialism. Britannia rules nearly a quarter of the world's population at this point. It's all connected to the era in which he's born and the class status he has, which is by any standard, extremely privileged. His father has British aristocratic heritage and is also a ruthless Tory politician. And his mother, Jenny, this beautiful American socialite. And he is this pretty baby when he's born, according to his father. And all through his life people talk about his pink and cream chubby infant complexion. So I think it's kind of easy to imagine him being born that way.
- [07:49]
Peter Frankopan
I mean, look, I think that you're right, afwa, that the story that the British tell themselves at the time and now is about global conquest and that kind of inheritance that you're there to rule. But the bottom line as a starting point is that the British had built something that there was to rule in the first place. And so those chubby pink cheeks, the sense of entitlement and of duty, all rounded up by 200 or 300 years that have involved awful things like the slave trade, exploitation and so on, but have also meant that the UK is a kind of central point for global trade, for imports, for exports, for ideas, and for that self confidence that allows chubby little cheeked kids to think they're going to rule. So Churchill, when he grows up, plays endless games with his lead soldiers at school. He writes an essay about how Britain could invade Russia, including detailed battle plans. And I don't know whether you did that at school, but that didn't really cross my mind. And I tell you, Churchill did it just for fun. It was kind of maybe one day Britain should or could or would invade Russia.
- [08:46]
Afua Hirsch
Even the language is so interesting. I mean, you said that Britain built this whole global empire, which is true, but it wasn't benevolent building, it was through conquest and violence. And he didn't have this fantasy idea of the empire, that it was all about building schools and hospitals for him. It was at this early age about war.
- [09:04]
Peter Frankopan
There's this amazing story of Churchill coming home from chapel on a Sunday evening at school and talking to his friend Merland Evans about his future. Tell us afwa what he says to him.
- [09:16]
Afua Hirsch
I see into the future this country will be subjected to a tremendous invasion. I tell you I shall be in command of the defences of London and I shall save London and England from disaster. It will fall to me to save the capital and save the empire. What kind of 16 year old thinks like that? That's what fascinates me. It's not normal, is it Peter?
- [09:46]
Peter Frankopan
No, but it's not a son of empire saying I want to conquer more. It's saying my status, our quality of life, us at the top. At his boarding school Harrow at the time, we are going to be under threat and we can't see where those clouds are coming from. And that I think is quite a negative defensive way of there's going to be substantial change and I guess anybody reading that or hearing that will think of the Germans. But you know, there's a kind of Downton Abbey feeling to this too, which is that gilded Victorian elite are going to come down a notch or two for lots of different reasons. I mean, in fact the Germans do quite a good job redressing the British Empire by challenging it in every corner of the world. But I don't know whether you read that as something that is so incredibly self confident and strident and full of self belief rather than one that's quite doubtful about what the future offers.
- [10:36]
Afua Hirsch
I actually would link the two. I think there's a deeper truth in that statement and maybe this is controversial, but any identity that's built on a sense of supremacy and superiority carries with it a fragility, a sense of being under threat. And I think the two go hand in hand. The British Empire knew that it had achieved this huge global domination through conquest and the use of force and that exposes you to threat and attack and it opens you up to other ambitious and aggressive would be colonizers. So I think that it's almost inevitable and I just find it so interesting that someone so young could really have grasped both that sense of innate supremacy that necessarily comes with believing in your right to have an empire and the burden of that that you will always be fighting, you will always be warding off threats. He really seems to have understood that on a very deep.
- [11:36]
Peter Frankopan
Church is not particularly strong academically when he's a boy or at secondary school, he's not one of the kind of superstars and so I wonder whether these kinds of Ideas that he's going to be a superhero is the kind of sort of Harry Potter syndrome of a young man thinking I need to find a role for myself because it's not going to be captain of the rugby team, it's not going to be head boy. But he has a very difficult relationship with his parents too, who don't pay him much attention, do they?
- [11:58]
Afua Hirsch
It's incredible to read these stories of extreme affluent neglect. How cold these upper class Victorian parenting ideas were. He really desperately craves the approval, love and affection of both his parents, Jenny and Randolph. And they're both distant, literally and figuratively. Packing him off to boarding school at such a young age, where he then proceeds to write these heartbreaking letters begging them to just come and see him, which they usually don't.
- [12:31]
Peter Frankopan
He writes 76 times to his parents in a six year period and writes to his mother, please do come down to see me, please do come, I've been so disappointed so many times. And a letter from his mother to these missives that come out. She says, I would come down to see you, but I'm afraid I've got so many things to arrange for the Ascot party next week that I can't manage it. Quite tough.
- [12:54]
Afua Hirsch
I mean, of all the reasons to not have time to visit your child. I try as a general rule as a mother, not to be judgmental of other mothers or parents in general. Because I thought you were gonna say.
- [13:04]
Peter Frankopan
Your Ascot parties, they take a lot of organizing. So you know, as a mother, how much time goes.
- [13:09]
Afua Hirsch
I can so relate. I can so relate, yes. Of the reasons that I may not be present for my daughter when she wants me, that is generally not top of the list. And it's not just that he's at boarding school and lonely and misses them, but these boarding schools were basically violent. And I mean, I've seen it in friends as well who went to boarding schools. I feel like there is a bit of a sink or swimming outcome that some people become very self sufficient, really develop strength of character and resilience and maybe a greater sense of their own purpose and character as a result. And others fall apart and can be really damaged.
- [13:46]
Peter Frankopan
The one thing I've learned from legacy is if you want your child to become famous and to succeed, the worse you treat them, the more the chances of them becoming world leaders, great musicians, you know, you name it. Whether it's Picasso, whether it's Gorbachev, whether it's Churchill, whether, whether it's jfk. That detachment of kids who are obviously struggling emotionally and desperate to get the endorsement and support and love of their parents and don't get it. It obviously does provide some kind of drive that can be incredibly narcissistic. It can be very damaging. And I suppose what you're gonna tell me, Afra, because I know you so well now, is that each one of them that make it masks the 999 who don't and have terrible abusive lives.
- [14:31]
Afua Hirsch
That took the words right out of my mouth.
- [14:34]
Peter Frankopan
There we go.
- [14:35]
Afua Hirsch
Am I that predictable?
- [14:36]
Unknown
Yes.
- [14:37]
Afua Hirsch
When you swim, you swim. When you sink, you sink. And Churchill swims. Although it's not the end of his tumultuous relationship with his father and he still is hoping to seek his father's approval going to Sandhurst and training in the military. And it doesn't really work out like.
- [14:55]
Peter Frankopan
That, partly because he fails the first two times to get in. So his father is furious with him.
- [15:01]
Afua Hirsch
And as is so often the case with seeking approval, I think actually the act of seeking approval only provokes even more displeasure from the person you seek it from.
- [15:16]
Peter Frankopan
6Th of April, 1894 Sandhurst Military Academy Camberley. Bracing himself against the stinging cold, Churchill wades across the narrow stream. Water seeps into the rolled up legs of his uniform. His eyes scan the murky brown surface. On the other side, a group of cadets is hacking at the bank with spades, digging channels to divert water away from the stream. Churchill frowns as he inspects their progress. The level isn't dropping. We need more channels. Gazing at a dark patch of water, he imagines his father's reaction on hearing that for the second time in as many weeks, Winston's pocket watch, a gift from Lord Randolph. His father, has been put in danger. The first time it was knocked from his hand and had to be rebalanced. This time it's gone. Slipped from his pocket while he was bending over the stream and sunk to the bottom of a deep pool on the stream bed. Fragments of Randolph's last letter to him before he joined the Academy swim through Churchill's mind. If you cannot prevent yourself from leading the idle, useless, unprofitable life that you have had during your school days, my responsibility for you is over. Shame and humiliation prick at his insides. Despite enlisting more than 20 of his classmates to the rescue party, their attempt to divert the headwaters isn't working. He rounds on the men. Keep it up, boys. Effort is success. Temporarily detained, we will get there. But instead of the team spirit he hoped to inspire, an older cadet shoots him a look of contempt. As a 19 year old first year Churchill knows his self confidence grates on some, but he shrugs it off. There's more important things to worry about. As the light rain begins to fall, he watches some of the cadets throw down their spades and start trudging back towards the college. As one passes, he shouts over face it, Winston. It's gone. Churchill feels dull panic weighing on his stomach. He wonders if he should even tell his father about the watch. It could be months before he next sees him. As the sound of church bells drifts towards him, his mind wanders. The chimes spark a memory. An image swims into focus. The Academy's fire engine. Two hours later, Churchill plunges the hose below the waterline as a cadet feeds coal into the engine's crackling furnace. He hears the clatter of the pump, feels the hose jerk as it begins taking up water. Churchill grits his teeth. Finally, a shimmering speck emerges from the depths. Winston immediately dives in, surfacing seconds later with his prize. Silt oozes from the gold casing, but when he rubs it clean, the Churchill family crest once again flashes in the evening light. Churchill's father dies young, aged just 45, probably from syphilis, in January 1895. Churchill's 20 and obviously affected Churchill deeply. Wanting your parents to be proud of you is something that everybody wants. And I guess the detachment in Victorian Britain is partly self selecting. I mean, I suppose part of it is to prepare you for the fact you're gonna be cut off and sent to a part of the world that you know nothing about and told to go and run it. So in a way, being deracinated, not having emotional connections is part there, I suppose, to provide you with a platform to be self sufficient when you're running the empire.
- [19:09]
Afua Hirsch
It's not a very popular argument against the British Empire, but I do think one of the least acknowledged costs of the imperial system was the effect it had on actual colonizers. You know, we often critique the empire from the perspective of those who were conquered and oppressed, had their land and labor stolen. But for the people who are supposedly benefiting from the empire, there was a huge and I think intergenerational toll. Exactly what you're describ this culture of hardening young privileged men so that they could be sent to someplace with which they had no connection. And I think Churchill is a real example of that, although he seems to have overcome some of it in his future ability to form relationships, which we will see.
- [19:49]
Peter Frankopan
Yeah, I think that that is right. But I wonder whether one of the things that is important about Churchill's father is that because Randolph Churchill dies young, that's also something that Churchill has an eye on, too. Afril, what do you reckon about that?
- [20:03]
Afua Hirsch
More than an eye. He's kind of obsessed with the idea that he'll die young. And it's not just his father. There are a lot of people on both sides of his family who die young, aunts, uncles, parents, grandparents. So I think it appears to him as a genetic trait. And he has this sense of not having much time. He's desperate to prove himself. He wants adventure. He wants to experience bullets flying. So he sets off to join a war he has absolutely no need to get involved in. But this is Churchill. And if you're Churchill, you think you're destined to die young. So why not live dangerously? Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds.
- [20:42]
Ryan Reynolds
Recently I asked Mint Mobile's legal team.
- [20:44]
Unknown
If big wireless companies are allowed to.
- [20:46]
Afua Hirsch
Raise prices due to inflation. They said yes.
- [20:49]
Ryan Reynolds
And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those onerous two year.
- [20:53]
Afua Hirsch
Contracts, they said, what the are you talking about?
- [20:56]
Unknown
You insane Hollywood So to recap, we're.
- [20:59]
Ryan Reynolds
Cutting the price of mint unlimited from.
- [21:00]
Unknown
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- [21:03]
Afua Hirsch
Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch 45 upfront payment equivalent to 15 per month new customers on first 3 month plan only.
- [21:09]
Unknown
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- [22:05]
Peter Frankopan
Churchill, the end of the 1890s, joins as a second lieutenant in the 4th Queen's Own Hussars, which is a cavalry regiment. But in fact, his first taste of action is not in the army. It's not even in the British Empire. But rather strangely, it comes from Cuba. Afua how does Cuba fit into all of this?
- [22:25]
Afua Hirsch
Well, Cuba is a really formative part of Churchill's story because he encounters two of the things that will forever define his legacy. And the first of those is something unexpectedly close to my heart. Because he manages, in the summer of 1885, when the Spanish colonial government are engaged in a guerrilla war in Cuba, to persuade the Daily Graphic to allow him to follow in his father's footsteps and become a war correspondent. Now this becomes a real pillar of Churchill's identity, his ability to control the story about himself and the things he's involved in. But it also becomes an important source of income throughout his adult life because even though he's from this great privilege, like many of British Britain's aristocratic families in this era, he's actually kind of cash strapped. So this thirst for adventure that he has from this imperial conditioning and sense of purpose can now be monetized into quite a lucrative source of storytelling for hungry British newspapers who are desperate for these adventures from brave young men at the far flung corners of the earth.
- [23:38]
Peter Frankopan
So he goes to Cuba because the Cubans are trying to get independence from Spain. But afu, you said that this taught him two things. One is writing stories that you can get paid for it. So he becomes the world's highest paid war correspondent. What's the second thing he picks up in Cuba?
- [23:51]
Afua Hirsch
A medal.
- [23:52]
Peter Frankopan
Oh, I thought you were gonna go cigars. I definitely thought Churchill, Cuba cigars.
- [23:58]
Afua Hirsch
I think he already had, which is unbelievable at this young age. Already had a cigar habit, although I can't imagine Cuba did anything to dampen those tastes. But he wins a medal for bravery in Cuba. So he from the outset is not just observer, war correspondent, impartially documenting what's happening. He is also a character himself in the story, taking part and showing already that he has this lust for adventure, but also this lack of fear under fire.
- [24:33]
Peter Frankopan
So he's seen fighting in Cuba, but his first serious experience of battle comes in Sudan.
- [24:41]
Afua Hirsch
September 2, 1898, OM German Sudan. Leaning forward in the saddle, Churchill watches his horse pawing the ground. With one hand, he soothes his grey Arab polo pony while the other clutches the nine foot steel tipped Lance used by his brigade. The 21st Lancers. Over the sunbaked dunes. A fine veil of sand lingers in the air around him. Men load and reload their pistols. Horses whinny and stamp. Churchill feels a ripple of anticipation. Kicking his pony on, he weaves through a maze of mounted soldiers readying for the charge. At the sound of the bugle, Churchill leads his troop of 20 riders into a canter. Through narrowed eyes, he can see The Khalifa's army of dervish warriors. A few hundred yards away, the lancers break into a gallop, their hooves thundering across the desert floor. Crouching in the saddle, Churchill tips his head back and roars, charge. But cresting a ridge, alarm explodes in his chest. In front of them is a dried riverbed full of hundreds of soldiers lying in wait, cutlasses flashing in the sun as far as his eyes can see. As the dervishes break cover, he hears men crying out in panic. Churchill yanks the reins, urging his horse to their flank. But already a wave of warriors is upon him. Using his pistol, he picks off a man a few feet ahead who drops out of sight. Turning, he sees another with a raised sword bearing down. Churchill fires again, so close that his gun strikes the man as he falls. Through a curtain of dust, he watches the dark outlines of dervishes continue to come, hears the volley of gunfire and the shrieks of the wounded. Twice more, his Mauser pistol delivers him from imminent death. Then, just as quickly, the fighting is over. The enemy retreats, vanishing into the landscape. As the air clears, the harsh sun glares down on the terrible aftermath of the battle. Churchill guides his horse past groaning men and prone corpses, mutilated beyond recognition. He winces as a soldier calls out in an unfamiliar tongue. A spear stuck right through him. He realizes at some point he lost his pith helmet. He looks down at his ripped uniform, its gold brocade smeared with blood and dirt. He sees a lancer drive a spear through a wounded dervish. And despite the searing desert heat, he shivers.
- [27:40]
Peter Frankopan
I mean, I think those kinds of descriptions on the one hand read like a boy's own book, you know, about how exciting it is to be in battle, but the hell of battle, it's hugely traumatic to witness. But what's amazing about Churchill is that it works like adrenaline for him. So he writes to his mother after being shot at on the northwestern frontier. He said, I don't believe the gods would create so potent a being as myself for so prosaic an ending as to be shot so as though he's going to be protected by divine intervention. And then he writes, and you'll like the safwa. I shall devote my life to the preservation of this great empire and to trying to maintain the progress of the English people. I mean, isn't that just how all empires stick together? That's what Romans would have been saying. I suppose that's what Persians would have been saying. That's what any imperial structure looks like. People have to believe that the Gods are protecting them and that there's destiny involved.
- [28:36]
Afua Hirsch
The thing that's unique about European empires in this era, the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th century, is the combination of a belief in their own racial and cultural superiority combined with pseudoscientific theories about the objective biological, genetic and spiritual supremacy of white people. The influence of Darwinian evolutionary theory, the role of philosophers like Hume and Locke and other Europeans like Kant, the whole combination of it was a formidable body of racial theory. And so yes, all empires have used violence and they've all had a narrative about their own destiny and their own chosen status. But this really is unique. And I think Churchill is the embodiment of that in so many ways. And in the legal world there's this phrase, a genuinely held false belief. I use that because I think Churchill did genuinely believe it and that justified taking their sovereignty, ending their lives, stealing their land, looking at them like children. But I also will push back because I suspect you're going to say it, Peter, against the idea that that was the view of the time and we should judge them by the standards of the time. Because it depends who you asked at the time. You know, if you asked my ancestors in Ghana who were experiencing the wrong end of the barrel from this idea of white supremacy, I think they would have said they disagreed with that idea of the unique superiority of white Europeans and their violence. And so we just perpetuate the idea that the Churchillian perspective has some kind of unique value by saying they felt like that at the time. And therefore that's the standard we judge them by. Like, don't you find that completely circular?
- [30:26]
Peter Frankopan
I do think it's circular. I think there are three separate things. One is that the triumph of science, those ideas about Darwin and evolution are quickly adopted and baked into racialized ideas about hierarchies. Little bit within Europe too, the Catholics and the southern Europeans are worse than the northern blonde or blue eyed ones. But then it scrolls down towards India and at the bottom comes Africa. That's absolutely right. Second, I suppose that the printing press, the levels of education mean that ideas can stretch further, they can embed themselves in education systems. You can teach people the same, both good things about maths and science, but also these terrible things too about race. But of course the difference about British and other European empires is the ways in which they have these long distance connections across multiple oceans. And that means that of course sitting in London or in Paris or Rome or wherever it might be, those kind of highly self selecting ideas about why you deserve to be at the top they bake themselves into a whole set of so called values that are difficult. I mean, I agree with you that, but the idea that you go, well, everybody said this at the same time doesn't make it any better. But Churchill I think was part of a product of an age where this had been indoctrinated into him. So I'm not quite sure how he could have got out of it any other way.
- [31:40]
Afua Hirsch
And I think it's not a question of whether we should expect him to have got out of it, but more a recognition. And that I think is what frustrates me about the conversation because it gets reduced to someone like me attacking Churchill, saying he shouldn't have had those racist views, and then someone on the other side defending him, saying, well, he was a product of his time. I don't think either of those is a particularly helpful approach. The reality for me is he had those views. He was a product of his time, he was a product of his conditioning. My critique is that the British mindset at the time was to uphold those views and that those views had real consequences for people's lives for the long term reality of our geopolitical arrangement. The places conquered by Britain are fundamentally changed in such a way. They are scarred deeply on every level from that experience. And I think it's recognizing that and incorporating it into our understanding that really counts. So it's not so much a question of Churchill's personal culpability for having those views. And it's actually really important because without his racial views, we can't understand his attitude towards Jewish people, which we're going to come to, which doesn't fit neatly into what I've just described, but it's very much part of his racialized thinking. We can't understand his attitude towards Hitler. We can't understand decisions he took during the war. We can't understand his obsessive defense of empire. Deeply understanding who he was and what he did and what the legacy is requires us to understand the pervasiveness of that worldview and how significant and impactful it was and continues to be.
- [33:15]
Peter Frankopan
Yeah, I think it's very hard to argue with that. And I mean, Churchill, for example, apart from being accused of racism generally, you know, writes some pretty awful things about Muslims and about Islam in particular, that Islam increases instead of lessening the fury of intolerance. It was originally propagated by the sword and ever since its votaries have been subject above the people of all other creeds to this form of madness. Those things are obviously products of the time through education and so on. But you're absolutely right. Those have legacies that sit with us here in the 21st century, too.
- [33:47]
Afua Hirsch
And again, I think people who defend Churchill point to things that he admired in Muslims or Indians or black people, you know, specific things he might have done that might have happened to benefit a group of people who fall into that category. For me, it's not a balance sheet taken in the round. It is a whole system of thinking that is entirely racialized and completely hierarchical and undeniably white supremacist. And that context and that history has never been undone. There was never a moment in the 20th century where that just ended and there was restorative justice. And now we have this level playing field. We are very much the inheritors of the earth that Churchill helped to forge.
- [34:28]
Peter Frankopan
So his writings on fighting on the empire's far flung frontiers, they've made a name for himself. But for now, the fighting is done. And in 1899, he's bored by garrison life, so he packs up his sword and his polo mallet and he heads back home.
- [34:44]
Afua Hirsch
The 20th century is looming, and for Churchill, it's time to follow in his father's footsteps and to try for a career in politics.
- [34:54]
Peter Frankopan
So he stands for the seat of Oldham for the Conservatives, but he's beaten by a Liberal. But he's already got his eye on the next opportunity, and that's the second Boer War, which begins in 1899, lasts for three years, and it's the longest and costliest conflict the Britain fights. But again, this is an opportunity for him to have fun. Afua.
- [35:14]
Afua Hirsch
He heads to South Africa in Churchillian style, well stocked with claret, champagne and whiskey. And just for context, this young upstart in 1899 is now better paid as a journalist than either Rudyard Kipning or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who are also covering the war. So while his early parliamentary career has not got off to an esteemed start, his early journalistic career is flying.
- [35:42]
Peter Frankopan
In November 1899, he joins the Dublin Fusiliers on patrol in an armored train, and the train gets ambushed. Churchill helps the wounded into cover and then strolls around as the bullets are flying, remarking, this will be very interesting for my paper. He's taken captive and marks his 25th birthday as a prisoner of war in Pretoria. He describes being taken as the greatest indignity of my life. He's determined to jailbreak.
- [36:12]
Unknown
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- [37:44]
Peter Frankopan
Churchill's in prison and after four weeks he climbs over a fence in the latrine under the COVID of darkness and slips through the quiet streets of Pretoria. He gets to the station and clambers on board a coal train, hiding under some sacks of coal. He has four slabs of melted chocolate and a crumbling biscuit and has to make it across 300 miles of Boer Tertiary and is the focus of a huge manhunt.
- [38:08]
Afua Hirsch
This is one of those episodes in Churchill's life, Peter, that you really couldn't make up, and he's wandering around the countryside almost starving. He has run out of snacks and knocks randomly on the door of a cottage only to discover his immense life luck that the owner is British. And so he hides with this cottage owner in a coal mine where he ends up staying for four days and he describes lying in permanent darkness and listening to the sound of the rats scurry around him. And when the lights rule out over him as well, he makes it to the border of Portuguese East Africa, modern day Mozambique, and then returns to South Africa to national acclaim.
- [38:51]
Peter Frankopan
I mean, isn't there part of Apho that you think, God, I mean, what an amazing life the man has had, even if it ended there. And then, I mean, he rejoins the army and takes part in some of the war's most famous battles. In one of them, his horse is shot from underneath him. I mean, it's kind of Extraordinary that this man has seen now action in different parts of the world and experience the kinds of things that he has. It's an amazing story.
- [39:12]
Afua Hirsch
I think one of the things that you really can't take away from Churchill is his fearlessness. He doesn't fear death, he's brave, he's a huge risk taker and gambler. All these things have positive and negative aspects to them. But it's funny when some of our contemporary politicians who like to cast themselves as the heirs to Churchill invoke his name. I often think you wouldn't last five minutes in Churchill's shoes.
- [39:36]
Peter Frankopan
I've got some respect for that bravery of being in battle, you know, the horror, the fears, I mean, absolutely right. The horrific conditions and the way the Boers are treated. But that's not Churchill's fault or responsibility. I mean, what he does do is he makes all run to his advantage. So when he gets back to London, he's a national hero because he's managed to create his own brand, I guess we call it today. He's got name recognition. People like to read how he writes. He's a good writer, he's able to capture what's going on well because he's become a media darling and a war correspondent. He has the pick of a number of safe seats, but returns to fight in Oldham again in the October general election of 1900. And this time he wins the seat, becoming an MP at the age of 25. But he doesn't find Conservative policies straightforward, does he? Afua?
- [40:21]
Afua Hirsch
Not at all. It's the beginning of a real love hate relationship with the Tories. And this is a really interesting time in British politics. It's the final years of Liberal versus Tory parties being the main clash in the British two party system. The new Labour party has only two MPs in this election in 1900, but it's the beginning of a rapid rise for the British left. So during Churchill's first term in Parliament, he actually drifts away from the Tories towards the Liberal side. And he is someone who we would now recognize as more socially and politically progressive than I think we think of with the Conservative Party. He's specifically attracted to ideas about social reform and he often talks about the Tories as the party of the rich against the poor, of the classes and their dependents against the masses, of the lucky, the wealthy and the happy and the strong against the left out and the shutout millions of the weak and poor. You wouldn't think listening to that, that he is the lucky, the wealthy, the Rich.
- [41:28]
Peter Frankopan
I think he really believes this. This isn't a posture designed to say whatever you need to get elected. I think Churchill is a politician of his convictions. What's interesting, I think, when you read that quote, afoul, is that Churchill is the kind of poster boy of conservatism today in the uk, More so even than Thatcher, I think. So to hear Churchill talk like that about the importance of building up the resources of the poor, nationalizing industries to try to protect workers, trying to work out how to improve the lots of soldiers, that's quite a sympathetic way of seeing that Churchill is at least responding to that world around. And in fact, in Churchill's case, by the time of the next general election in 1906, he's become disillusioned with the Conservatives and the Tories. He switches to the Liberal Party standing for them in the election. But although he's progressive about some things, what's hard is to then be completely blind to race, but also to gender inequality.
- [42:24]
Afua Hirsch
So Churchill's views about women's suffrage did evolve over the course of his lifetime, significantly. But it's fair to say that at this stage, his views about women, to contemporary ears read as very dark age, saying things like, I don't see why women need the vote. They have husbands and fathers to vote for them. And really didn't seem to understand that this was a foundational issue of justice and democracy. We use the word paternalistic to describe the British establishment at the time for a reason. You know, they regard colonial subjects, like children to be ruled over in their best interest. They also regard women as people to be ruled over in their best interest because they are not competent to make those decisions themselves. And that's how you square the circle of somebody who believes in Britain as a progressive and democratic force, but is happy to tolerate, even encourage, the absence of democracy and fairness and progressive values for different groups in different places, or in the case of women at home. And it's inherently illogical, but that is all part of the incredible ideology that race and paternalism is able to achieve. And this is a great example of that to me.
- [43:39]
Peter Frankopan
But it's a gilded time for Churchill. So as well as being part of the landslide in 1906, he's appointed to government for the first time as Undersecretary of State in the Colonial Office, which is the department in charge of overseeing the whole empire. And then just two years later, in 1908, under Ask, and now the MP for the safe Liberal seat of Dundee, Churchill becomes President of the Board of Trade he's in the Cabinet and he's the youngest member of cabinet for 40 years. So his star is on the rise. He's charismatic, he's young, he's a hero, he's well known, he says the right things to the right people at the right time. And he's got a powerful ally in Lloyd George who's setting a reform agenda that Churchill has hooked himself onto.
- [44:22]
Afua Hirsch
And you know, I love a love story. PETER not forgetting that this year, 1908, is the year in which he meets and proposes to the beautiful and lively aristocrat Clementine Hier. There's a bit of an age gap. He's 33, she's 23. But when they get married in September 1908, it will be the beginning of more than half a century of marriage for this pair.
- [44:49]
Peter Frankopan
And then in 1910, aged just 35, he is appointed Home Secretary, the youngest for nearly 100 years. And we've got these two sides of Churchill already that are clear. On the one hand, the Conservative that votes against women having the vote, he flirts with eugenics, he talks about the feeble minded, talks about sterilizing the so called mentally unfit. He's signed up to the idea of empire as a concept. But on the other hand, there are flashes of progressive liberalism. For example, he supports the rights of Chinese laborers in South Africa. Despite his racist writings, he opposes the attempts to restrict immigration of Russian Jews following a tsarist pogrom into Britain. So he is a reformer on the one hand, but he's also stuck in the trenches in another.
- [45:36]
Afua Hirsch
He has this very memorable quote. I see little glory in an empire which can rule the waves and is unable to flush its sewers. I personally don't think there's actually a contradiction between his pro imperial views and his socially reform oriented views about Britain, because it's all part of this idea of Britain as this great nation uniquely placed at the apex of civilization. You can't regard yourself as the leader of the world if you don't have a functional system in your own country so much as it's a really inconvenient reality. I think that many social reformers were partly driven by this idea about their own greatness. And he is a brilliant example of that.
- [46:24]
Peter Frankopan
I probably take a slightly more generous view. I think that when you're pushing for prison reform with liberal policies, when you're limiting the number of hours that minors can work, when you're trying to have a pensions bill that gives workers a pension for the first time, when you're trying to do minimum wages, better conditions. You know, I think that is paternalistic. You could argue that it provides a more robust economy that therefore props up the social hierarchies. But I think that is also about trying to do good. And you know, Churchill supports Lloyd George's so called People's Budget. It's a very kind of Blair right idea, a wealth redistribution that's unprecedented in British history with a super tax on the wealthy with death duties and so on. So, you know, I think that Churchill is stuck in the dark ages in some areas, but there's lots of light where he's also opening doors that I think do a lot more good than they do harm.
- [47:13]
Afua Hirsch
It was one standard for Britain and another standard for its colonies. And that's because in my opinion, you can't separate his belief in social reform with his belief in the superiority of the white race. It wasn't something he attached to the rights of people because of their humanity.
- [47:29]
Peter Frankopan
He's on the wrong side, absolutely, in terms of reforms of empire and so on. One thing that Churchill is good at most of the time is spotting emerging trends. He is on point again in the first decade of the 20th century where he starts to warn about the rise of German militarism, its naval expansion. So Churchill sets up sas, which is Britain's first official spy agency, to keep an eye on the Germans. And when he's made First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911, Churchill starts to prepare the navy for war because he can see it coming. And that's the first of two world wars that's going to loom large over his life, his career and over his legacy.
- [48:10]
Afua Hirsch
The Second World War, of course, makes Churchill, but the first, it will nearly break him. That's next time on Legacy. Follow Legacy on the Wondery app, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast. You can binge seasons early and ad free right now by joining Wonderyplus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey@wondery.com survey from Wondery and Goalhanger. This is the first episode in our series about Winston Churchill.
- [49:08]
Peter Frankopan
A quick note about our dialogue. We can't know everything that was said or done behind closed doors, particularly when we go far back back in history. But our scenes are written using the best available sources. So even if a scene or conversation has been recreated for dramatic effect, it is still based on biographical research.
- [49:26]
Afua Hirsch
We've used many sources for this series, including Walking with Destiny by Andrew Roberts and Winston Churchill. His times, his crimes by Tarek Ali. Legacy is hosted by me Afwahirsh and me Peter Frankopan. Scene writing by Jack McKay for Goalhanger.
- [49:46]
Peter Frankopan
Our series producers are Kate Taylor, Jane Morgan and Anoushka Lewis. Robin Scott Elliott is associate producer. Our production managers are Izzy Reed and Alex Hack Roberts. The executive producers are Tony Pastor and Jack Davenport.
- [50:01]
Afua Hirsch
This series of Legacy was sound engineered and designed by Emma Barnes and Rob Spate.
- [50:07]
Peter Frankopan
Music supervision is Scott Velasquez for Frison Sync.
- [50:10]
Afua Hirsch
Our producer for Wondery is Emanuela Quinotte Francis and our managing producer is Rachel Sibley.
- [50:16]
Peter Frankopan
Executive producers for Wondery are Estelle Doyle, Chris Bourne, Morgan Jones and Marshall Louis.