My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleyrectitude, which was fortified by an established, an hereditary position. 'The littleWelsh attorney' in the First World War often had the rigid obscurantism of anobsolete General Staff against him, sustained by the support of the Crown. He and thetroops won the war in spite of them. Churchill in the Second World War came from avery different milieu and was aided by memories of the first; he had none of thesedisadvantages. He was not obliged to pass through the struggle of his ancestor ofgenius to attain his triumph.Marlborough, like Lloyd George, had to make many bricks without straw, to managethe Crown with the aid of his wife, to manoeuvre an often hostile political situation athome, to handle obtuse and intractable allies, to intrigue by devious means in order tofree his capable hands for great action. It is lamentable that such men should beplaced in such a position, but this is a familiar situation in British history. Macaulaycould write of Marlborough: 'At twenty he sold his vigour and his beauty, and at sixtyhis glory and his genius'. But it may be asked whether in the conditions of his timeJohn Churchill would have emerged from obscurity, or the will of England wouldever have been imposed on Louis XIV, if his methods had not been a trifleunorthodox. The rigid old Whig's ultimate understanding of life's realities may haveled him finally to exclaim as he stood in front of Kneller's portrait of Marlboroughafter his terrific denunciation: 'Yet I can never gaze with equanimity into JohnChurchill's cold, sad eyes'. It was well that Marlborough's reputation in the end was soably defended by his descendant Winston Churchill, who curiously at least tosuperficial observation differed from him in every particular of character. Thedescendant was in personal dealings conspicuously honest, warm of nature, impulsive,emotional, swayed by passion to a dangerous degree in his assessment of men andsituations. The ancestor was ice-cold, realistic, coolly calculating, but deeplydedicated to great purposes of supreme benefit to his country. He was the Englishmanwho alone in the company of Chatham could match the two great Latins, Caesar andNapoleon, or the Teutonic genius of the two Fredericks, Hohenstaufen andHohenzollern, on the dusty plain of action.It is difficult even now to analyse what was the trouble between the best characters inEnglish politics and Lloyd George. Probably it is true that at some point he soldhonours, but he might have replied in his own terms that if the Huguenot King HenriIV could say 'Paris is worth a mass', he could be forgiven for tossing a few worthlessplutocrats into a political museum he had always despised, if this could secure for himthe means to break free from reaction and to solve the unemployment and housingproblem. They shuddered when it was reported to them that Lloyd George's P.P.S.,Sir William Sullivan, had walked into the Athenaeum after gaily performing a lightlydelegated duty, observing that he had just 'made another two bloody bishops'; but theyshould have understood the fellow was a bit uncouth. There was already talk about thewomen, but some of the venerated pillars of the Constitution like Wellington andPalmerston had already forestalled L.G. in that sphere, and many of their favouritefriends were at the same time quietly, unobtrusively surpassing him. Was it then just aquestion of manners, class, an attitude to life, a deep incompatibility of temperament?Whatever it was, it weighed with them more than all Lloyd George's dynamism andhis potential of immense service to the cause of peace to which they were genuinelydedicated. They buttoned up their prim little overcoats against the chill of LloydGeorge's methods, while their country and Europe caught pneumonia from the icyblast of the next war.123 of 424