The Man Who Saved Western Civilization

By David Samuel McCalmont

Winston Churchill was born 150 years ago as of November 30, 2024. There is a temptation to think of him as a product of a bygone age. The truth is that he was the foremost opponent of the scientific and totalitarian impulse that was overtaking the world. That impulse, partially defeated in his time by his indispensable efforts, threatens us still today.

There is also a temptation to view Churchill as a charming, whimsical, foreign aristocrat who lived for the late evening with its opportunities for slightly profane ripostes, a man who drank too much, smoked big cigars, could not draw his own bath, or pay his own bills. He careened among personal peccadilloes, extravagant statements and living opulently amidst poverty in all corners of the British Empire. As a less than perfect human specimen, he was all of these.

Continuing with his shortcomings, he always spent more money than he had, a habit that was hard to accomplish since he earned a lot of money. Especially in the 1890s, his ambition wore itself openly for all to see. He did not have the gift of Abraham Lincoln to be underestimated. His fluency and quickness of thought made him appear erratic. Colleagues reported that his whirlwind of words overcame his reason. These criticisms are of the sardonic kind, however: a tacit recognition of his obvious excellence at many things.

A Rare and Unique Excellence

There are myriad picturesque particularities about Churchill. Historians have noted the neglect of his father and its impact on Winston. But they are not unique. Many a famous person has gotten back up five times after having been knocked down four. A host of people have talked too much or lived beyond their means. But these are mere annoyances in comparison with the overarching seriousness of this man.

Churchill's excellences are so rare it’s difficult to think of another who had them. He authored more than forty books. Some were said to be better than others; a few are great by any standard; all are worth reading. Churchill wrote them himself. His collected speeches, not quite exhaustive, consume more than 8,000 closely printed pages. They are a monument to political reasoning as much as to eloquence.

There was a strategic sense to his worldview. It developed over a lifetime and didn't waver any from his central theme that England and everything it stood for was a treasure to itself and to the world. England is an island surrounded by uninviting seas. To survive and eat, it had to conquer those seas. Thus, its merchant marine and navy became the envy of its continental neighbors. This affected how Great Britain was governed. European kings had big armies, which made them strong against their rival parliaments. Kings became absolute. Britain had a huge navy and an anemic army. Navies aren't so handy for oppression at home. Britain became freer; power was more divided.

With their unrivaled navy and merchant marine in place, the world became England's oyster. Before long, Britain had a great empire, little of which was gained by conquest on orders of the British government. India, the jewel in the crown, was conquered by the British East India Company, led by Robert Clive, a junior clerk without military training when he began. Britain was mighty and influential everywhere but its presence in most places was not that of a conquering host.

Churchill thought this quality was unique and beneficial for the world. He loved the empire above all else, but to him, the empire was a projection of the treasure that was England. He opposed the idea that nations existed to swallow up weaker ones. That was a despotic understanding of politics which Churchill despised. He gloried in the fact that the Empire magnified England's influence on all corners of the globe.

The Political Animal

In politics, Churchill was a reformer who helped to invent the social safety net. He was also a master of administration. He had a great knack for grandiose organization. It was both a glory and a sadness in his life that his greatest moments came in 1940 during England's entrance into WWII. During his lifetime, politics was a higher calling, and war must be the servant of freedom. But war is urgent, and Churchill was a master at leading during wartime.

His term for WWII was always "the unnecessary war." Churchill gained power on the very day Hitler began his attack westward that would destroy France and take Germany to both the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Churchill assumed command when Britain was alone against overwhelming force.

On May 28, 1940, there were meetings first of the wider cabinet and then of the War Cabinet. Mussolini had offered to host a peace conference. Churchill made one of the greatest speeches of his life to the full cabinet. Remarkably, the speech was impromptu, and we only know what he said from notes taken by two cabinet members. He said that there could be no safe peace with Hitler. The British must be prepared to fight to the end: "If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground."

The Wartime Leader

Churchill's speech was thrilling to those who heard, and it stiffened their resolve for war. But this was the only period in his career where he used such dire terms.

When the renowned University of Chicago political philosopher, Dr. Leo Strauss, walked into his class on January 24, 1965, to be told of Winston Churchill's death, he uttered these extemporaneous remarks according to students:

“The death of Churchill is a healthy reminder to students of political science of their limitations, the limitations of their craft. The tyrant stood at the pinnacle of his power. The contrast between the indomitable and magnanimous statesman and the insane tyrant; this spectacle in its clear simplicity was one of the greatest lessons which men can learn, at any time.

Notes on His Death

“No less enlightening is the lesson conveyed by Churchill's failure, which is too great to be called tragedy. The fact that Churchill's heroic action on behalf of human freedom against Hitler only contributed, through no fault of Churchill's, to increase the threat to freedom which is posed by Stalin or his successors. Churchill did the utmost that a man could do to counter that threat – publicly and most visibly in Greece and in Fulton, Missouri.

“Not a whit less important than his deeds and speeches are his writings, above all his Marlborough, the greatest historical work written in our century, an inexhaustible mine of political wisdom and understanding, which should be required reading for every student of political science.

“The death of Churchill reminds us of the limitations of our craft, and therewith of our duty. We have no higher duty, and no more pressing duty, than to remind ourselves and our students, of political greatness, human greatness, of the peaks of human excellence. For we are supposed to train ourselves and others in seeing things as they are, and this means above all in seeing their greatness and their misery, their excellence and their vileness, their nobility, and their triumphs, and therefore never to mistake mediocrity, however brilliant, for true greatness.”

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The memory of Winston Churchill 150 years since his birth towers in human excellence over the flashes of brilliant mediocrity cast on us by many another titan of Western civilization in our age of modernity.