II.

World War I and the Inter-War Period

Churchill's role in World War I was controversial and almost destroyed his career. He was an energetic First Lord, but his sponsorship of the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign and the subsequent failure of the Anglo-French fleets to force the Dardanelles Strait led Asquith to demote him to the powerless office of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in May 1915. Deprived of any influence on the war, he resigned from this post in disgust in November. Following service as a battalion commander on the Western Front, he was brought back to political life in 1917 by the new prime minister, Lloyd George, who appointed him Minister of Munitions. After the war he served in Lloyd George's coalition Cabinet from 1919 to 1922, as Secretary for War and Air and as Colonial Secretary. The collapse of Lloyd George's government in September 1922, after a war scare over Turkey in which Churchill played a typically bellicose role, left him out of office and out of Parliament—he lost his seat at the subsequent general election and was not returned to Parliament until October 1924, as “Constitutionalist” (Conservative) MP for Epping. Much to his surprise the Conservative prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, offered him the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer, where he demonstrated his new Conservative credentials by returning Britain to the gold standard and vigorously condemning the trade unions during the 1926 General Strike.

From 1929, when Baldwin's government fell, until 1939, Churchill found himself back in the political wilderness. His outspoken opposition to the Indian nationalist movement and his support for Edward VIII during the 1936 abdication crisis alienated Baldwin, who now regarded Churchill as a political liability, while his subsequent clamour for rearmament and his attacks on appeasement, particularly in 1938, earned him the implacable hostility of Neville Chamberlain, who dominated the 1931-1940 National governments.