At the height of the Battle of Britain, his bracing survey of the situation included the memorable line “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few”, which engendered the enduring nickname The Few for the RAF fighter pilots who won it. He first spoke these famous words upon his exit from No. 11 Group’s underground bunker at RAF Uxbridge, now known as the Battle of Britain Bunker on 16 August 1940. One of his most memorable war speeches came on 10 November 1942 at the Lord Mayor’s Luncheon at Mansion House in London, in response to the Allied victory at the Second Battle of El Alamein. Churchill stated:
This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
Without having much in the way of sustenance or good news to offer the British people, he took a risk in deliberately choosing to emphasise the dangers instead. “Rhetorical power”, wrote Churchill, “is neither wholly bestowed, nor wholly acquired, but cultivated.” Not all were impressed by his oratory Robert Menzies, prime minister of Australia and himself a gifted phrase-maker, said of Churchill during the Second World War: “His real tyrant is the glittering phrase so attractive to his mind that awkward facts have to give way.” Another associate wrote:. “He is … the slave of the words which his mind forms about ideas … And he can convince himself of almost every truth. If it is once allowed thus to start on its wild career through his rhetorical machinery”
Since the appearance in 1966 of Lord Moran’s memoir of his years as Churchill’s doctor, with its claim that “Black Dog” was the name Churchill gave to “the prolonged fits of depression from which he suffered”, many authors have suggested that throughout his life Churchill was a victim of, or at risk from, clinical depression. Formulated in this way, .Churchill’s mental health history contains unmistakable echoes of the seminal interpretation of Lord Moran’s Black Dog revelations made by Dr Anthony Storr. In drawing so heavily on Moran for what he took to be the latter’s totally reliable, first hand clinical evidence of Churchill’s lifelong struggle with “prolonged and recurrent depression” and its associated “despair Storr produced a seemingly authoritative and persuasive diagnostic essay that, in the words of John Ramsden, “strongly influenced all later accounts.”
However, Storr was not aware that, as Moran’s biographer Professor Richard .Lovell has shown, Moran, contrary to the impression created in his book, kept no diary, in the dictionary sense of the word, during his years as Churchill’s doctor. Nor was Storr aware that Moran’s book as published was a much rewritten account which mixed, together Moran’s contemporaneous jottings with later material acquired from other sources. As Wilfred Attenborough has demonstrated, the key Black Dog ‘diary’ entry for 14 August 1944 was an arbitrarily dated pastiche in which the explicit reference to Black Dog—the first of the few in the book (with an associated footnote definition of the term)—was taken, not from anything Churchill had said to Moran, but from much later claims made to Moran by Brendan Bracken (a non-clinician, of course) in 1958. Although seemingly unnoticed by Dr Storr and those he influenced, Moran later on in his book retracts his earlier suggestion, also derived from Brendan Bracken, that, towards the end of the Second World War, Churchill was succumbing to the inborn melancholia of the Churchill blood”; also unnoticed by Starr et al., Moran, in his final chapter, states that Churchill, before the start of the First World War, 1 managed to extirpate bouts of depression from his system”. . .
Despite .the difficulties with Moran’s book the many illustrations it provides of a Churchill understandably plunged into temporary low mood by military defeats and other severely adverse developments constitute a compelling portrait of a great man reacting to, but not significantly impeded by, worry and overstrain, a compelling portrait that is entirely consistent with the portraits of others who worked closely with Churchill. Moreover, it can be readily deduced from Moran’s book that Churchill did not receive medication for depression – the amphetamine that Moran prescribed for special occasions, especially for big speeches from the autumn of 1953 onwards, was to  combat the effects of Churchill’s stroke of that year.
Churchill himself seems, in a long life, to have written about Black Dog on one occasion only: the reference, a backward-looking one, occurs in a private handwritten letter to Clementine Churchill dated July 1911 which reports the successful treatment of a relative’s depression by a doctor in Germany. His ministerial circumstances at that date, the very limited treatments available for serious depression pre-1911, the fact of the relative’s being “complete cured”, and, not least, the evident deep interest Churchill took in the fact of the complete cure, can be shown to point to Churchill’s pre-1911 Black Dog depression’s having been a form of mild (i.e. non-psychotic) anxiety- depression, as that term is defined by Professor Edward Shorter.
It will be apparent from the preceding paragraphs that there Es a serious doubt about the reliability of the evidential foundations of the dominant, essentially Storrian, perception that Churchill’s mental health was an open-and-shut case of clinical depression. Moran himself leaned strongly En the direction of his patient’s being “by nature very apprehensive”; close associates of Churchill have disputed the idea that apprehension was a defining feature of Churchill’s temperament, although they readily concede that he was noticeably worried and anxious about some matters, especially in the buildup to important speeches in the House of Commons and elsewhere. And Churchill himself all but openly acknowledged in his book ‘Painting as a Pastime’ that he was prey to the “worry and mental overstrain by persons who, over prolonged periods, have to bear exceptional responsibilities and discharge duties upon a very large scale”. The fact that he found a remedy in painting and bricklaying is a strong indicator that the condition as he defined it did not amount to ‘clinical depression’, certainly not as that term was understood during the lifetimes of himself and Lord Moran.
According to Lord Moran, during the war years Churchill sought solace in his tumbler of whisky and soda and his cigar. Churchill was also a very emotional man, unafraid to shed tears when appropriate. During some of his broadcast speeches it was noticed that he was trying to hold back the tears. Nevertheless, although the fall of Tobruk was, by Churchill’s own account “one of the heaviest blows” he received during the war, there seem to have been no tears. Certainly, the next day Moran found him animated and vigorous. And Field Marshal Alanbrooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, who had been present when President Roosevelt broke the news of the tragedy to Churchill, focused afterwards in his diary on the superbly well judged manner in which the President made his offer of immediate military assistance. And this despite Alanbrookes being ever ready to highlight what he perceived to be Churchill’s contradictory motivations and flawed character during the war. For example, in his diary entry for 10 September 1944: … And the wonderful thing is that 3/4 of the population of the world imagine that Churchill is one of the Strategists of History, a second Marlborough, and the other 1/4 have no idea what a public menace he is and has been throughout this war! It is far better that the world should never know, and never suspect the feet of clay of this otherwise superhuman being. Without him England was lost for a certainty, with him England has been on the verge of disaster time and again … Never have I admired and despised a man simultaneously to the same extent. Never have such opposite extremes been combined in the same human being. Alanbrooke, in the words of Paul Reid, “was egalitarian: he criticized everybody, American and British”.
Churchill’s physical health became more fragile during the war, as shown by a mild heart attack he suffered in December 1941 at the White House and also in December 19 when he contracted pneumonia. Despite this, he travelled over 100,000 miles (160,000 km) throughout the war to meet other national leaders. For security, he usually travelled using the alias Colonel Warden.
Again, Churchill’s good relationship with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt—between 1939 and 1945 they exchanged an estimated 1,700 letters and telegrams and met 11 times; Churchill estimated that they had 120 days of close personal contact—helped secure vital food, oil and munitions via the North Atlantic shipping routes. It was for this reason that Churchill was relieved when Roosevelt was re-elected in 1940. Upon re election, Roosevelt immediately set about implementing a new method of providing military hardware and shipping to Britain without the need for monetary payment. Roosevelt persuaded Congress that repayment for this immensely costly service would take the form of defending the US; and so Lend-Lease was born. Churchill had 12 strategic conferences with Roosevelt which covered the Atlantic Charter, Europe first strategy, the Declaration by the United Nations and other war policies. After Pearl Harbor was attacked, Churchill’s first thought in anticipation of US help was, “We have won the war! On 26 December 1941, Churchill addressed a joint meeting of the US Congress, asking of Germany and Japan, “What kind of people do they think we are?’ Churchill initiated the Special Operations Executive (SOE) under Hugh Dalton’s Ministry of Economic Warfare, which established, conducted and fostered covert, subversive and partisan operations in occupied territories with notable success; and also the Commandos which established the pattern for most of the world’s current Special Forces. The Russians referred to him as the “British Bulldog”.
Churchill was party to treaties that would redraw post-Second World War European and Asian boundaries. These were discussed as early as 1943. At the Second Quebec Conference in 1944 he drafted and, together with Roosevelt, signed a less-harsh version of the original Morgenthau Plan, in which they pledged to convert Germany after its unconditional surrender “into a country primarily agricultural and pastoral in its character”. Proposals for European boundaries and settlements were officially agreed to by President Harry S. Truman, Churchill, and Joseph Stalin at Potsdam. Churchill’s strong relationship with Harry Truman was also of great significance to both countries. While he clearly regretted the loss of his close friend and counterpart Roosevelt,
Churchill was enormously supportive of Truman in his first days in office, calling him, “the type of leader the world needs when it needs him most.”
When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Winston Churchill, a vehement anti-communist, famously stated “If Hitler invaded Hell, I would at least make a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons,” regarding his policy toward Stalin. Soon, British supplies and tanks were flowing to help the Soviet Union.
The Casablanca Conference, a meeting of Allied powers held in Casablanca, Morocco, on 14 January through 23 January 1943, produced what was to be known as the “Casablanca Declaration”. In attendance were Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Charles de Gaulle. Joseph Stalin had bowed out, citing the need for his presence in the Soviet Union to attend to the Stalingrad crisis. It was in Casablanca that the Allies made a unified commitment to continue the war through to the “unconditional surrender” of the Axis powers. In private, however, Churchill did not fully subscribe to the doctrine of “unconditional surrender,” and was taken by surprise when Franklin Roosevelt announced this to the world as Allied consensus.
However, the settlement concerning the borders of Poland, that is, the boundary between Poland and the Soviet Union and between Germany and Poland, was viewed as a betrayal in Poland during the post-war years, as it was established against the views of the Polish government in exile. It was Winston Churchill, who tried to motivate Mikolajczyk, who was prime minister of the Polish government in exile, to accept Stalin’s wishes, but Mikolajczyk refused. Churchill was convinced that the only way to alleviate tensions between the two populations was the transfer of people, to match the national borders.
As he expounded in the House of Commons on 15 December 1944, “Expulsion is the method which, insofar as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting. There will be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble … A clean sweep will be made. I am not alarmed by these transferences, which are more possible in modern conditions.” However the resulting expulsions of Germans were carried out in
a way which resulted in much hardship and, according to a 1966 report by the West
German Ministry of Refugees and Displaced Persons, the death of over 2.1 million.
Churchill opposed the effective annexation of Poland by the Soviet Union and wrote bitterly about it in his books, but he was unable to prevent it at the conferences. Russian forces were beginning to advance into various eastern European countries. Churchill held the view that until everything was formally and properly worked out at the Yalta conference, there had to be a temporary, war-time, working agreement with regard to who would run what. The most significant of these meetings was held on g October 1944 in the Kremlin between Churchill and Stalin. During the meeting, Poland and the Balkan problems were discussed. Churchill told Stalin:
Let us settle about our affairs in the Balkans. Your armies are in Rumania and Bulgaria. We have interests, missions, and agents there. Don let us get at cross-purposes in small ways. So far as Britain and Russia are concerned, how would it do for you to have ninety per cent predominance in Rumania, for us to have ninety per cent of the say in Greece, and go fifty—fifty about Yugoslavia?
Stalin agreed to this Percentages Agreement, ticking a piece of paper as he heard the translation. In 1958, five years after the account of this meeting was published (in The Second World Wan, authorities of the Soviet Union denied that Stalin accepted the “imperialist proposal”.
One of the conclusions of the Yalta Conference was that the Allies would return all Soviet citizens that found themselves in the Allied zone to the Soviet Union. This immediately affected the Soviet prisoners of war liberated by the Allies, but was also extended to all Eastern European refugees. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn called the Operation Keelhaul “the last secret” of the Second World War. The operation decided the fate of up to two million post-war refugees fleeing eastern Europe.
Between 13—15 February 1945, British and US bombers attacked the German city of Dresden, which was crowded with German wounded and refugees. There were an  unknown number of refugees in Dresden, so historians Matthias Neutzner, Götz  Bergander and Frederick Taylor have used historical sources and deductive reasoning to estimate that the number of refugees in the city and surrounding suburbs was around 200,000 or less on the first night of the bombing. Because of the cultural importance of the city, and of the number of civilian casualties close to the end of the war, this remains one of the most controversial Western Allied actions of the war. Following the bombing Churchill stated in a top-secret telegram:
It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed … I feel the need for more precise concentration upon military objectives such as oil and communications behind the immediate battle-zone, rather than on mere acts of terror and wanton destruction, however impressive.
On reflection, under pressure from the Chiefs of Staff and in response to the views expressed by Sir Charles Portal (Chief of the Air Staff) and Sir Arthur Harris (AOC-in-C of RAF Bomber Command), among others, Churchill withdrew his memo and issued a new one. This final version of the memo completed on 1 April 1945, stated:
It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of the so called ‘area bombing’ of German cities should be reviewed from the point of view of our own interests. If we come into control of an entirely ruined land, there will be a great shortage of accommodation for ourselves and our allies … We must see to it that our attacks do no more harm to ourselves in the long run than they do to the enemy’s war effort.
Ultimately, responsibility for the British part of the attack lay with Churchill, which is why he has been criticised for allowing the bombings to occur. German historian Jörg Friedrich claims that Churchill’s decision was a “war crime”, and writing in 2006 the philosopher A. C. Grayling questioned the whole strategic bombing campaign by the RAE, presenting the argument that although it was not a war crime it was a moral crime that undermines the Allies’ contention that they fought a just war. On the other hand, it has also been asserted that Churchill’s involvement in the bombing of Dresden was based on the strategic and tactical aspects of winning the war. The destruction of Dresden, while immense, was designed to expedite the defeat of Germany. As historian and journalist Max Hastings wrote in an article subtitled “the Allied Bombing of Dresden”: “I believe it is wrong to describe strategic bombing as a war crime, for this might be held to suggest some moral equivalence with the deeds of the Nazis. Bombing represented a sincere, albeit mistaken, attempt to bring about Germany’s military defeat.” British historian Frederick Taylor asserts that “All sides bombed each other’s cities during the war. Half a million Soviet citizens, for example, died from German bombing during the invasion and occupation of Russia. That’s roughly equivalent to the number of German citizens who died from Allied raids.”

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