The celebrations were still going strong on 16 August when Churchill spoke in Parliament of the danger of a new war more terrible than any in the past. He gave thanks that the atomic bomb had brought peace to the world, but he cautioned that it would be up to men to keep the peace. He called the bomb ‘a new factor in human affairs’ and emphasized that with the advent of such a weapon it was not just the survival of civilization that was imperilled, but of humanity itself.
Hours after Attlee proclaimed that the last of Britain’s enemies had been laid low, Churchill pointed out that significant differences had already arisen with their Soviet ally about the state of affairs in Eastern and Central Europe. He noted the emergence of police governments and he observed that it was ‘not impossible that tragedy on a prodigious scale is imposing itself behind the iron curtain which at present divides Europe in twain’.
A fortnight after the conclusion of the Potsdam Conference, he lamented that instead of resolving the most serious questions, the three leaders had handed them off to a committee of foreign ministers, which was to meet in September and was gifted with less far-reaching powers. As he had at Potsdam, he perceived a unique opportunity in the fact that thus far only the US had the bomb. He warned that the time to get a settlement was during the three or four years that remained before any other power was likely to catch up. There was not an hour to be wasted, he cautioned, and not a day to be lost.
Despite the gravity of what Churchill had to say, he enjoyed parrying interruptions by some of the new Labour members. With a puckish grin he played up the irony of being the man to press for free elections elsewhere in the world when he had just been overwhelmingly defeated at home. Thumbs in lapels, he avowed his faith in democracy, whatever mistakes the people might be inclined to make. Speaking of the ideal of ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’ that he hoped to see implemented everywhere in Europe, he delighted listeners of all political persuasions with the self-mocking aside, ‘I practise what I preach!’
One young Labour member wrote in his diary afterwards that Churchill’s speech had been ‘a real masterpiece’; the New York Times called it ‘one of the greatest speeches of his parliamentary career’. Still, on a day of merrymaking in the streets, his words of warning were fatally out of sync with the national mood. Part of the power of Churchill’s iconic wartime speeches was the extent to which they captured the nation’s mood and gave magnificent voice to the hopes and ideals of the people. By contrast, the 16 August address was a throwback to his speeches in the 1930s, which had taken the form of warnings that no one wanted to hear, particularly so soon after the carnage of the First World War. In 1945, eager to start a new life under Labour, the war-weary British did not want to be informed that their trials had only just begun.
Clementine Churchill exulted that her husband’s ‘brilliant moving gallant’ speech had been on a par with his best work, but she too was ready for a new life after the war. The Churchills had left Claridge’s for their eldest daughter Diana’s flat in Westminster Gardens, where they were to stay while Clementine worked on reopening their country house, Chartwell, in addition to readying a new house in London. The couple had settled on a brick house in a cul-de-sac at Hyde Park Gate, off Kensington Road, but the sort of life they intended to have there remained a point of contention.
While Clementine, aged sixty, saw Hyde Park Gate as a retirement haven, Winston emphasized its proximity to the House of Commons. He assured fellow Conservatives that he would be able to get to the House in less than fifteen minutes. By the use of certain shortcuts, the driver could probably do it in seven.
In the course of Churchill’s long and tempestuous career, the one person whose backing he had always been able to count on absolutely was his wife. Through thirty-six years of marriage, Clementine had never lost faith in what together they called his ‘star’, and never wavered in the mystical conviction that Winston was destined to accomplish great things. Repeatedly, in the face of political disappointment, she had soothed his bitterness and encouraged him to carry on. Consistently, she had put him above their children’s needs and her own. She once told him that if to help him or make him great or happy she had to sacrifice her life, she would not hesitate.
Clementine also saw his flaws and did not fear to point them out to him. She was nothing if not critical. Nonetheless, whatever he wanted for himself this imposing and formidable woman had learned in some sense to want as well. His trials had been her trials, and his enemies had been her enemies. At least, that had always been the case – until now.
The present situation was lonelier and more personally painful than anything the Churchills had experienced to date because, suddenly, husband and wife were in open and irreconcilable conflict about how to spend the rest of their lives. During the Second World War, Clementine had worried about Winston’s health to the point that her own was affected. Still, as long as the Nazi menace remained she had found a way to accept that her husband must put himself at risk and that she might lose him in the process. After the war, she saw things differently. Winston was old and ill. She loved him and she wanted them to be able to enjoy the few years they still had together. As far as she was concerned, his wartime leadership had vindicated the decades when they had sometimes been almost alone in the world in believing in him.
Though Winston persisted in dwelling on unfinished business, Clementine was confident that he had fulfilled his destiny at long last and that he – no, they – had earned a quiet, happy retirement.
While he certainly did not always do as his wife suggested, he prized her judgement and political acumen. He was always eager to know what she thought, and he would grow annoyed if she refused to tell him. In early 1945, Clementine had counselled her husband to retire as soon as the war was won and to refrain from seeking reelection. She wanted him to leave office, but that did not mean she wished to see him defeated in Britain’s first postwar general election. On the contrary, when he insisted he was not ready to be ‘put on a pedestal’, Clementine supported his candidature unreservedly.
Still, her comment that the election loss might prove to be a blessing in disguise went to the heart of a new kind of sadness in their marriage. Much as Clementine ached for him in defeat, she earnestly believed that they would both be better off in private life. Much as it pained her to see him again feel rejected and unappreciated, there could be no denying that in some sense she had got what she wanted. From this point on, the burdens of the premiership would fall to others.
After Parliament went into recess on 24 August, Churchill had nothing to absorb and distract him. It was almost worse that he had known the fleeting joy of preparing and delivering his big speech. The letdown was stunning in its ferocity. As he once wrote, he found it very painful to be impotent and inactive. In the emptiness of his days he brooded about the election, but even in private he could barely bring himself to criticize those who had cast him out. (Clementine, interestingly, was less forgiving of the British public.) In his view the people’s right to choose their leaders was the very thing he had fought the war to protect, and he struggled to suppress his bitterness at what he could not help but perceive as their ingratitude.
He was mightily unhappy, and his wife observed that that made him very difficult at home. Clementine regretted that rather than cling to each other in their sorrow, they seemed always to be having scenes. He fought with her, with her first cousin Maryott Whyte, with their son, Randolph (always an eager sparring partner), and with others. He complained about the food he was served; he protested at the lack of meat now that he had to endure the same physical shortages as other men; he imagined that the ‘gruff bearish’ cousin, an impoverished gentlewoman who assisted Clementine in household matters, was intent on thwarting him at every turn. He wanted to have cows and chickens at Chartwell. ‘Cousin Moppet’ maintained it would never work. Feathers flew. Clementine said she was sure it was her own fault, but suddenly she was finding life with Winston more than she could bear.
The people had spoken, and by any realistic assessment Churchill was never going