Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill

   Before I discuss this book, I’d better remind you (no, more like warn you) that the great adventurers were all upper-class Englishmen. Lawrence of Arabia, Richard Burton, George Orwell, they all had upper-class manners and fancy schooling. Maybe their families didn’t all have money, but they weren’t Cockneys. They were all well-bred and educated, like Lawrence who was an Oxford grad, and Churchill, who went to Sandhurst. Churchill, however, was something of a “poor relative” of nobility. He was related to the Duke of Marlborough, born at Blenheim Palace, and even though the family were nobility, they were financially poor. They were always needing money to keep their mansion going, and his ancestors all had to marry rich American heiresses in order to eat. I wonder if these men, since they were too upper-class to become doctors, had to become adventurers in order to prove themselves?

    What always fascinated me about Winston Churchill was that he was born to privilege, yet he managed to graduate from the Sandhurst military school and handle all the rigors of army training. Then again, Sandhurst is more luxurious than West Point, and it’s not an engineering school, so passing isn’t as much of an effort. He didn’t buy his commission like the officers of old, so we can guess he’d be qualified to lead troops. But at the same time, he didn’t really have to pay his dues in life; he was always guaranteed a place at the top table.

    Candace Millard believes that Churchill’s military career, from India to Africa, was just a carefully engineered stunt to promote himself. She starts with his service in India, where he chose a conspicuous gray horse, and constantly put himself in danger so his superiors would see him. He wasn’t that great a soldier by the way, because his men usually ended up getting massacred. In India he was an Englishman in charge of native troops, and their lives were not considered to be worth as much as his. He wouldn’t be faulted for getting them killed, and whatever heroics they did on his behalf would be ignored. The cards were always stacked in his favor.

     One could call this a book about the younger Winston Churchill, kind of like a “before they were stars” biography. But it’s really about his self-promotion and how he had a talent for drawing the spotlight on himself. After each deployment, he wrote a book about it (India, Sudan, South Africa) and used the publicity to get himself elected to Parliament. Though not expressly mentioned, Churchill’s exploits could easily have been fabricated. His escape from a Boer prison camp could’ve been embellished (he might have bribed a guard) and there may have been people helping him that he didn’t credit. Maybe he stole a horse to help in the escape? As for his heroics in South Africa, much of the fighting was done not by Englishmen, but by natives in the British employ. Mohandas Gandhi, then a (mistreated and abused) lawyer, organized an all-Indian regiment of stretcher bearers, and he, as the regimental Sergeant, required them to save soldiers of both races. The usual British policy was to save only the English and leave native troops to die.

    The writing is good, thorough research gives it credibility. However, the story isn’t especially interesting, not his military career nor his escape. I’m sure his lecture tours, with lantern slides and battle trophies, must have enthralled the London audiences. But the details are not fun to read about. Much of the “escape” was spent hiding in a coal mine and being smuggled across borders in a coal cart. In his “daring escape” it’s actually the civilians that are risking their lives to get him out, not the other way around. The wealthy classes, who sat in rapt attention, must have gasped when he brought out a Pashtun scimitar. I can just imagine the look on their faces when he said “and then, the screaming bearded savage charged at me, yelling “Alahu Akbar” with murder in his eyes.” But let’s keep in mind that brave Lieutenant Churchill would’ve been first in line to be evacuated, leaving the Sikh and Gurkha soldiers to die on the battlefield. Same thing with the Boer War, except that Sergeant Gandhi’s stretcher bearers had to (at Gandhi’s insistence) carry out both the English and the natives.

   Churchill was a self-promoter, no doubt about that, but I guess it’s like the saying goes; history is written by the victors, and to the victors go the spoils of war.