British statesman and writer
Winston Churchill was born in Oxfordshire on 30 November 1874. He was the eldest son of
aristocrat Lord Randolph Churchill. Following his graduation form the Royal Military
College he entered the army and joined the Boer War as a war corespondent. He was captured
during the Boer War. After his escape, he became a National Hero. Ten months later he was
elected as a member of the Conservative Party.
In 1904, he joined the Liberal Party and in 1911, he became first Lord of the Admiralty.
His successful career was almost destroyed as a result of the unsuccessful Gallipoli
Campaign. He was the father of the idea of an expedition to the Dardanelles, which would
easily succeed with a naval attack. Nevertheless, the Turks defended the strait stronger
than expected and the Allies failed to capture Istanbul. Churchill was the main actor of
this failure and his opponents forced him to resign from the Admiralty. However, he
returned to the government as the Minister of Munitions in 1917.
In 1924 he returned to Conservative Party and was given the job of Chancellor of the
Exchequer (1924-1929). In 1939, he was appointed once more first Lord of the Admiralty and
in 1940 he succeeded Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister. During World War II he
followed a successful military and social policy and established close relations with
Roosevelt. It was in the same period he co-operated with Russia about the allies' Balkan
policies. However, he was afraid of a Russian domination in that region, thus, he tried to
persuade Turkey to join the war. He negotiated with Turkish statesmen in Cairo and in
Adana, but refused to accept Turkey's conditions. After the war, he worked for
establishment of NATO and EC.
Churchill won the election in 1951 and once more became the Prime Minister. In 1955, he
resigned and A. Eden succeeded him.
He spent much of his last years writing and painting. In 1953, he received the Nobel Prize
for literature and in 1963, US Congress conferred on him honorary American citizenship. At
the age of 90, he died in 1965, in Blenheim Palace.
Some of His Works: Life of Lord Randolph Churchill (1906); The World Crisis (4 volumes,
1923-1929), Marlborough (4 volumes, 1933-1938); War Memories (6 volumes, 1948-1954) |
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